South African anti-apartheid stalwart Aziz Pahad dies at 82

By Hassan Isilow

South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Aziz Pahad has died, his family and the ruling African National Congress Party (ANC) announced. He was 82.

Pahad passed away on Wednesday evening at his home in Johannesburg. His brother Essop Pahad, also a veteran of struggle against white minority rule, died in July.

The ANC said it will remember Pahad as a patriot, freedom fighter, and servant of the people throughout his life.

“He was a dedicated member of the ANC, a brilliant diplomat, and a strategist who served as a member of parliament and deputy minister for international relations from 1994 to 2008,’’ it added.

President Cyril Ramaphosa extended his deepest condolences, saying “Aziz Pahad worked for our freedom during his decades in exile in the United Kingdom, Angola and Zambia – a period during which he played a diversity of roles including as a member of the ANC's Revolutionary Council and the Political Military Committee and being part of the ANC negotiating team that secretly met representatives of the apartheid regime and also with leading members of the Afrikaner community."

He described Pahad as a "consummate diplomat" not only in the service of South Africa, but in support of causes for freedom and justice elsewhere in the world, notably advocating the plight of the Palestinian people.